> People run to below-costs services like cats to catnip. You can make anyone happy by selling them $10 bills for $1. The problem is, what happens when all the competitors are gone, and the reason for below-cost offering ends?

You don't seem to be following Uber financials. Uber makes good profits on the rides. They are losing money on their attempts to expand into other segments (like Eats), and R&D.

> Of course they had, and we grant such authorities all the time. There's a special type of insurance covering commercial transport of people, (...)

That's because drivers who transport people tend to drive much more than average, and so the insurers want to charge them higher premiums even if they are safer on per-km basis. Either way, your argument in no way proves that the authorities had any reason to believe that Uber is less safe than regular taxis.

> These laws didn't came out of the blue and weren't just instances of random regulatory capture. The laws creating barriers to entry and (in some places) granting taxi companies limited monopoly are the flip side of the legal requirements that come with the taxi service being treated as a part of public transport infrastructure.

Rent-seekers always hide behind excuses that they are actually serving important public function.

> Things like the legal requirement for taking passengers in unprofitable locations, or having cars in the fleet adapted for the needs of people with limited mobility. Things Uber did not do, because it didn't have to (and couldn't, really, with their "just a platform" business setup).

Uber actually does all of these. In many cities, you can specifically hire wheelchair accessible vehicle via Uber. Moreover, drivers cannot just refuse unprofitable rides, because they don't know where they going before accepting them, in a way taxi drivers often can and do.

But, more importantly, if the government wants this service to be provided, it should just pay for it, instead of instituting a hidden tax on cab riders. The riders pay more, the profit reaped by cab companies is typically more than the actual cost that the government would have to pay if they just paid for it directly, and on top of that, the deadweight loss is immense, as seen by the huge expansion of people transport services whenever Uber enters the market.

> The rides were. The prices you paid for a ride were sometimes less than the driver would get from Uber, but Uber wasn't going to pay the drivers more than they needed to (at least not until some follow-up competition came).

So how were the drivers "underpaid", if they were paid as much as they were needed to? Also, just a moment ago you said the competition was not possible, and yet now you claim some came up, and actually forced Uber to increase wage. Can you make up your mind?

> That's why Uber is betting so hard on self-driving. They've been operating on a loss for many years now, and they know they can't sustain it.

As I noted above, this is very much false, and is extremely apparent if you spend even a moment looking at financials. They operate ride segment at a profit, and they very much can sustain it. They cannot sustain their valuation if they downscale their R&D and expansion to other segment, and just focus on rides, their share price will get a good hit, but as a business on the cash flow basis, they are very much solid and are able to operate rides indefinitely.

> The meantime always ends, eventually. Leaving behind a thoroughly destroyed market.

This is very much false, empirically. The subsidies for Uber rides in US cities are pretty much over, while the market is very healthy.